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Such was the fate of my artificial dove. Whilst mechanical science intended it to follow the eagle in the sky, destiny bestowed on it the instincts of a mole. I was walking about sadly discouraged, as one always is after the failure of a great hope, when I perceived a flock of cranes flying over my head. I stopped to look at them. They advanced in a triangular order, like the English at the battle of Fontenoy. I saw them crossing the sky from cloud to cloud. “Ah! how well they fly,” said I to myself, “with what confidence they seem to glide along the unseen path they wish to pursue.” Alas! May God forgive me! but for one moment, only one, a horrible feeling of envy entered my soul—it was on account of the cranes. With envious looks I followed them to the extreme limit of the horizon. For a long time, standing motionless in the midst of the passing crowd, I watched the movements of some swallows, and I was astonished to see them suspended in the air, as if I had never before beheld that phenomenon. A feeling of profound admiration, till then unknown to me, flashed across my soul. I thought that I saw nature for the first time. I heard with wonder the buzzing of flies, the song of birds, and that mysterious and confused murmur of a living creation, which involuntarily proclaims its author. Ineffable concert in which man alone has the sublime privilege of being able to join with hymns of intelligent thanksgiving! “Who is the Author of this wonderful mechanism?” I exclaimed. “What manner of Being is He who opened His creative Hand and launched the first swallow on the wind? At Whose command the trees sprang from the earth and flung their branches towards heaven? And thou, entrancing creature, who walkest majestically beneath their shades, whose looks compel respect and love, Who placed thee on the surface of the earth to embellish it? What mind was it that designed thy divine form, and was able to create the glance and smile of innocent beauty?
“And I, who feel my heart beating, what is the object of my existence? What am I and whence did I come? I, the maker of the ‘artificial dove?’ ” Scarcely had I pronounced this outlandish word, when, suddenly coming to my senses like a sleeping man, over whom someone has emptied a bucket of water, I perceived that I was surrounded by several persons, who were critically examining me, while I was engaged in my enthusiastic soliloquy. At that moment I saw the lovely Georgine, who was walking some paces in front. Half of her left cheek, which was highly rouged and which I saw between the curls of her yellow hair, brought me back completely to everyday thoughts and ideas, from which I had strayed for a few moments.